It would not be just, however, to scrutinise the policy of Lord Auckland at this time by the light of our after experience. We know now, that before the Simlah manifesto was issued, the Persians had raised the siege of Herat,—that, for all purposes of defence against encroachments from the westward, the expedition to Kurrack, contemptible as it was in itself, had sufficed. We know that the handful of “rotten Hindoos,” as Mahomed Shah subsequently designated them, magnified by report into an immense armament, had caused that monarch to strike his camp before Herat, and march back his baffled army to Teheran. But, on the 1st of October, 1838, Lord Auckland believed, and had good grounds for believing, that the fall of Herat was inevitable. At this time it may have been questioned whether the restoration of Shah Soojah to the sovereignty of the Douranee Empire were the best means of resisting Persian aggression and combating Russian intrigue, but few doubted the propriety of doing something to meet the dangers that threatened us from those sources. Had Herat fallen to the Persian arms, the Barukzye Sirdars, without some intervention on our part, would have prostrated themselves at the feet of the Persian monarch; and Russia would have established an influence in Afghanistan which we should have striven in vain to counteract. There was a real danger, therefore, to be feared. Though the means employed were of doubtful justice and expediency, the end to be accomplished was one of legitimate attainment.